Friday May 24th at 6pm- Defending the Land in Northern California

Defending the Land in Northern California
A presentation by Will Parrish

Friday, May 24th - 6pm
Co-hosted by Santa Cruz Indigenous Solidarity

Highway construction, land and water grabs and deforestation pose major threats to California’s North Coast bioregions.  But to paraphrase Foucault, where there is destruction by state and corporate power, there is also resistance.

This presentation will describe several direct action resistance movements in the North Coast region in recent years, with a major focus on the anti-highway struggle in Willits. The Willits Bypass threatens greater destruction of wetlands than any project in Northern California in the last 50 years.

Come hear inspiring stories of community efforts to defend the land, and learn about plans for future action this summer and beyond and how you can lend support!

Will Parrish is a journalist and anarchist who lives in Ukiah.

For more background on the Willits Bypass struggle, please see: http://savelittlelakevalley.org/

Grand Jury Teach-In: Wednesday August 22nd, 6pm

Resist Grand Juries!

Please join us on August 22nd for a community grand jury teach-in. Grand 

juries are tools of government harassment that have long been used to 

intimidate and destroy radical movements.

Come out and learn what grand juries are and how they operate, what your 

rights are, and how you can support grand jury resisters. 

There are active grand juries convened in the Bay Area and the 

Pacific Northwest. Several people have been subpoenaed and are

scheduled to appear before the grand jury in the coming months.  

They need your support! Please see the Tues. Aug. 7th post on 

this blog for more info.

And go to Committe Against Political Repression for updates.

Solidarity with anarchists facing repression world-wide!

Indigenous Resistance Film Series, Wed. May 25th, 7pm

Indigenous Resistance Film Series

The Santa Cruz Indigenous Solidarity working group is excited to be showing four amazing films this month that highlight the struggles of various Native communities to protect their land and defend their ways of life. After each film we will give a brief update on the continuing work of the communities depicted, and discuss related struggles closer to home that are in need of support. Each film showing will be a fundraiser to support a specific indigenous struggle, and we greatly appreciate any donations you can give.

In The Light of Reverence

Wednesday May 25th, 7pm

SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave.

Ten years in the making, In the Light of Reverence explores American culture’s relationship to nature in three places considered sacred by native peoples: the Colorado Plateau in the Southwest, Mount Shasta in California, and Devils Tower in Wyoming. Rich in minerals and timber and beloved by recreational users, these “holy lands” exert a spiritual gravity which pulls Native Americans into conflicts with mining companies, New Age practitioners, and rock climbers. Their battles tell a new story of culture clashes in an ancient landscape.

In the Light of Reverence juxtaposes reflections of Hopi, Wintu and Lakota elders on the spiritual meaning of place with views of non-Indians who have their own ideas about how best to use the land. The film captures the spiritual yearning and materialistic frenzy of our time.

http://www.sacredland.org/in-the-light-of-reverence/

Suggested donation $3-5
No one turned away for lack of fund

Indigenous Resistance Film Series- Wednesdays

The Santa Cruz Indigenous Solidarity working group is excited to be showing four amazing films this month that highlight the struggles of various Native communities to protect their land and defend their ways of life. After each film we will give a brief update on the continuing work of the communities depicted, and discuss related struggles closer to home that are in need of support. Each film showing will be a fundraiser to support a specific indigenous struggle, and we greatly appreciate any donations you can give.

Kanehsatake

Wed. May 18th 7pm

A powerful documentary of the 77-day armed stand-off over a burial site in Quebec that propelled native issues at Kanehsatake into the international spotlight.

This film documents the 1990 crisis when Native Americans of the Mohawk Nation blocked access to reserve land which was being appropriated against their will by the white community of Oka, Quebec, Canada. What this film shows is the initial incident and the resulting siege from the Mohawks point of view as an illustration how this is simply a result of resistance to 270 years of European racism pushing them around and leading up to this confrontation.

http://www.nfb.ca/film/kanehsatake_270_years_of_resistance/

Oppose and Propose! Andrew Cornell, Sunday May 8th at 7pm

“If we’re going to create a power vacuum, if we’re going to take down a structure or a system, we have to have something ready to go into its place. Because if there is a power vacuum, a counter-revolution will start immediately. We have to have something that puts the system in place that we really want to live in. ”—Betsy Raasch-Gilman, Movement for a New Society

Oppose and Propose!
Lessons from Movement for a New Society
by Andrew Cornell

Reading by author
At SubRosa, Sunday May 8th at 7pm

Where do the strategies, tactics, and lifestyles of contemporary activists come from? Movement for a New Society, a radical pacifist organization active in the 1970s and 1980s, pioneered forms of consensus decision making, communal living, direct action, and self-education now central to antiauthoritarian movements. Brimming with analysis, interviews, and archival documents, Oppose and Propose!: Lessons from Movement for a New Society recovers a missing link in recent radical history, while drawing out crucial lessons on leadership, movement building, counterculture, and prefigurative politics.

MNS served as a crucial organizational link between the movements of the 1960s and the post-Seattle global justice movement. Yet the group’s political innovations created tensions of their own. Members found their commitments to “live the revolution now” often alienated potential allies and distracted them from confronting their opponents, while their distrust of leadership and rigid commitment to cumbersome group processes made it difficult to keep their analysis and strategy cutting-edge. Oppose and Propose! fills an important historical gap, asking where the tactics, strategies, and even ways of living we take for granted today come from. Cornell answers that question in this concise collection of documents, which include an edited transcript of a panel discussion held with former MNS members, an interview with MNS founder George Lakey, and excerpts from two MNS pamphlets, as well as Cornell’s own long monograph on the history and legacy of Movement for a New Society.

About the author: Andrew Cornell is an educator, writer, and organizer living in Brooklyn, New York. He has been involved in labor, global justice, anti-prison, and other movements for over a decade. He teaches classes in labor history, social theory, and urban studies, and is completing a book length study of anarchism in the United States during the 20th century.

Indigenous Resistance Film Series, Wednesdays in May at 7pm

The first film screening on Wednesday May 4th, at 7pm is a benefit for local herbalists who are going to Black Mesa to participate in the Spring Health Clinic. $3-$5 donation is appreciated.

**A Note from folks from the Red Root Herbal Collective: As you may already be aware, a series of temporary herbal & bodywork clinics have recently been organized at Big Mountain (Black Mesa, Arizona), the first taking place last Spring. In brief, these free, volunteer-run clinics are a way to support the direct needs of residents of Black Mesa who have been resisting coal mining and forced relocation on their ancestral lands for over three decades. Health care services in these areas are minimal and much knowledge of plant and healing traditions is passing away with the older generations.

It is for these reasons that a member of the Big Mountain community proposed the week-long clinics. Herbalists from Santa Cruz previously co-organized clinics in May of 2010 and in November of 2010 in conjunction with the Fall Caravan of Support. There will be another temporary clinic this May 12-18th.

The last two clinics have relied largely on medicines that participating herbalists brought themselves, supplemented by donations. While this worked in the past, this year we are hoping to receive more extensive donations of medicine and/or money to purchase supplies.

Tuesday April 5th, discussion on...

Fighting in the New Terrain: What's Changed Since the 20th Century

Tues. April 5th, 7pm
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave.

Drawing on two decades of individual revolt and international struggle, comrades from Crimethinc will discuss previous strategies, review the shifts in our terrain since the 20th century and propose new points of departure for anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian resistance.

http://www.crimethinc.com/ for more information and to read blog post on this subject.

SubRosa is an anarchist community space run by a collective of committed volunteers. We put energy into SubRosa to create a vibrant community space available for events, classes, and meetings, collaborations and organizing, art and creativity, as well as reading and studying. We are working to create a world guided by mutual support, without coercive control.

Sat. April 2nd at 2:30pm

“Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope & Empowerment”
with Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh

Saturday April 2nd at 2:30pm
at SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave.

On Saturday, April 2nd, Dr. Mazin Qumsiheh (pictured on right when arrested by Israeli soldiers at Al Walaja in May 2010), a Palestinian author and activist, will speak about militant nonviolence and the Palestinian struggle. Viewpoints will galvanize around the following topic of discussion: "Given the current turmoil in Egypt, the impasse in making progress towards a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the prominent role that the U.S. government plays in the Middle East region, what should be the priorities of U.S. Middle East policy and why?”

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in Israeli occupied Palestine. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke and Yale Universities. Qumsiyeh is president of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour. His most acclaimed book is Sharing the Land of Canaan: human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle.

He published an activism handbook on his website qumsiyeh.org. Qumsiyeh’s main interest is media activism and public education. He also regularly lectures on issues of human rights and international law. His new book Popular Resistance in Palestine reviews Palestinian nonviolent civilian resistance to displacement and occupation dating back to the beginning of the 19th century until today.

The events are sponsored by the Middle East Program of Resource Center for Nonviolence and the Palestine Israel Action Committee.